The Missing Link
by Richie S
Summary: How did we get from now to the Dune Universe? Here is a brief timeline that will show what happened.


The narrative of Dune begins in the year 10,191 AD, about 4000 years after the Butlerian Jihad and shows us a place unrecognizable when viewed from Herbert's 1965 or even 2013. So how did things get from there to here? This timeline will show you.

2013 - Present day.

2030 - Virtually overnight the economy of the United States implodes, due to massive levels of debt and inability to create new jobs due in part to inability to adapt to contemporary economic events and government stifling of free enterprise. With the economy destroyed the United States rapidly degenerates into a barbarism unimaginable in modern times as citizens exchange gunfire over a gallon of gas and fight to the death over a can of condensed milk. The world watches in horror as America is obliterated by strife, the power is turned off and does not come back on; the infrastructure is left to rot. The ripple effects are felt; China with the sudden loss of its best customer suffers its own sharp economic downturn which leads to civil unrest which the government is unable to control. By Jan. 1, 2031 the world finds itself in anarchy. There is no practical government, economy, useable infrastructure, or law and order.

2031- 2100 - At first anarchy reigns and people live in barbarism. After a generation chaos has given way to a tribal way of life that is of a lo-tech and agrarian nature. The common denominator that has been able to hold society together is religion. Each of the major world religions finds itself needed to provide order to the tribes of the world which they begin to do. Each tribe soon becomes a theocracy. By 2070 many tribes have merged to form a more feudal government. Like history before it the clergy of different faiths and sects at first fight for control of the power. These holy conflicts once again spillover to the secular world and end all the progress that has come since 2030. Until something happened, the racial memory of the Great Collapse left its mark on the people and they issued an ultimatum to their clergy, known as the Ecumenical Pledge or simply the Pledge: "Place no prerequisite allegiance of doctrine for economic or political alliance." The clergy who scoffed at the Pledge suddenly found themselves with no members of their congregations. The Pledge ultimately leads to a permanent separation between the clergy and feudal rulers.

2130 - A century after the Great Collapse life on Earth begins to stabilize, the spirit of the Pledge lead to the First Ecumenical Council where all the leaders of the major world religions come together to mediate society, while the newly secular feudal governments come together in the Landzard Council (name for its first chairman) to discuss long term goals and continuation. One of the major goals of both Church and State is the restoration of technology, something that is aggressively pursued in the years to come.

2130 to 2160 - Within a generation of the First Ecumenical and Landzard Councils, technology had recovered to where it was in 2030, however it existed on a smaller scale. Instead of factories churning out goods in mass, it was relegated to the level of a skilled craft and secrets became hereditary, this became the Technology Guild. Such a format meant that only the Feudal governors who found they were becoming dynasties and their advisors had access to the technologies of the Guild.

2170 - The feudal governments had for the most part evolved into dynasties that like their earlier counterpoints took House Names. The great Houses were born. No House was an island as the Landzard council still effectively governed Earth as a Parliament of Great Houses. The Chair position was effectively the Emperor. Law and Order on the scale of a world government had finally come to Earth.

2200 - The Technology Guild continued to expand its technologies but found itself calculating that its resources would expire within 200 years. Thinking in terms of long term goals it began expanding its technology to include short range space travel for the purposes of mining, namely the Moon, Venus and Mars.

2220 - The World Ecumenical Council found itself awash with syncretism as the people of the world found the differences between the major world religions to be at the very least verbal and at the very most a matter of perspective. Despite some dissenters the Council declared that all paths to the Divine were equal and the "best religion" was the one that brought one closest to the Divine. This proclamation opened the floodgates as with the last vestige of contention removed people began cooperating with each other and an untold of rate. With religion uniting and technology mostly in the hands of the government people were as united as ever; a good thing seeing as what was about to soon happening.

2300 - The Technology Guild has successfully opened mining operations on Luna, Venus and Mars and brought these resources back to Earth. In doing so it has formally renamed itself the Spacing Guild. More miners come every year as the industrial nature of mining means economic development over the agricultural economy back on Earth. Human civilization in space thrives.

2400 - Following brief revolutions Luna, Venus and Mars become independent entities from their founders and member in good standing of the Landzard Council which over the years has come to be pronounced Lansdraad. Meanwhile religion has taken an interesting turn in the former mining colonies as the faith of the miners has syncretized beyond recognition to the religions of the Ecumenical Council. Terms such as Zensunni, Karmicatholic and Jainmayahna can be best used to describe the religion on the mining colonies who like their governments come to enjoy membership on their respective councils. Meanwhile the Spacing Guild sets its sights on mining operation on the Asteroid Belt, Jupiter, Saturn and their moons.

2500 - Human life has spread through the Sol system and the Lansdraad, Spacing Guild and Ecumenical Council are not worldwide but system wide. Overpopulation is a whisper on the lips of most people, through the system there is currently enough resources but what of the third and fourth generations? The Spacing Guild begins experimenting with sleeper ships and means of propulsion to reach beyond the Sol System.

2508 - The first wave of sleeper ships and their crews launch from Europa Station in orbit of Jupiter.

2533 - The looming threat of overpopulation continues to face the Sol System, towards this end various means are used to counter this, one of which is the use of cyborging. Inspired by the faith of Transtherevadaism, people agree to enter Nirvana by giving up their physical bodies and allowing their consciousness to be downloaded into a mainframe in a digital world. The experiment is successful and the supplicant enters Nirvana! They are no longer human but a consciousness that has transcended into a digital existence in a computer. The universe has seen the first artificial intelligence AI.

2600 - The Nirvana Method as first seen in 2533 becomes commonplace through Sol. AIs are everywhere and some contemplate that it may be the future of mankind. Opposition begins growing to the procedure however. In fact opposition to it engenders an emotional reaction in its opponents not seen since the days predating the Ecumenical Council! The various AIs thought the system pragmatically decide to disappear from sight and gather together to a Bonn-AI temple where they claim to be meditating. In reality they are combining into a Super-AI and making preparations for survival. The ruckus over the procedures dies down over the coming decades.

2713 - One of the sleeper ships originally launched from 2508 returns from Deep Space, suddenly appearing where moments before had been nothing! The ship had been a mining expedition to Planet A -66- RKS, a desert world with unknown mineral holdings that lay 80 light years beyond Earth. This planet of course would later be known as Arrakis. The crew of the ship as headed by Guild had become the first humans to use Melange and its corresponding effects to travel through space/time and arrive in Sol. As the cargo holds of the ship were filled the Spice which value was soon made evident to the entire system the mutation these people experienced was kept secret from the public. News of this does not escape the Super-AI which had coalesced into Omnius which correctly sensed that its time was coming.

2800 - Large scale mining of Arrakis commences and with the use of Spice enhanced navigation intergalactic travel far beyond Sol is made possible. Human life comes to Arrakis in the form of Zensunni miners who would become the Fremen. Their efforts of mining the Spice ignite a massive wave of colonization. The known Universe as it existed during the reign of the Padishah emperors occurs in the 90 years since Melange became known. One of the problems essentially established during this time as the discovery of inhabitable planets occurs rapidly during this time. One of the problems encountered during this time was the massive bureaucracy of an expanding universe. Great Houses of Earth were now granted fiefdoms of entire planets, how was such tribute to be exacted on a galactic scale? Needing their efficiency of AI the Guild began a propaganda campaign to sway the minds of the people back in favor of AI. The creators of this campaign projected that it would be successful in 9 years to bring AI back as more efficient governance was desired by citizens through the universe. The inner circles of the Guild referred to this projection in Roman numerals of IX.

2810 - The Guild was correct; Omnius was allowed to enter into the bureaucracy of governing the growing worlds of the known universe.

3000 - Starting from the time of its reinstatement Omnius began slowly running things. After each successive generation accepted its help it pushed its boundaries. First it did everyday number crunching. Then it needed help and Titans were created. Then to save time it took on more administrative duties. Then it needed more help and neocymek (cyborg servants) were created. To save even more time it was given more administrative duties. By the year 3000 Omnius was effectively the Emperor of the Known Universe with humans its indifferent subjects. There were someone who resisted, taking their title from the earlier Amish these "Humish" protesters who wanted to retain their humanity were largely ignored and ridiculed. In response to this they moved underground and began low grade campaign of guerrilla warfare, propaganda and economic sabotage against Omnius.

3100 - The Humish remain stagnant in number and are on the verge of dying out. Out of desperation a suicide attack is staged on Omnius's compound that is brutally routed. The unexpected brutality of this attack shocks the Universe and public sentiment again Omnius begins to build. The Humish now find themselves a respected sect.

3300 - An ongoing propaganda war between Omnius and the Humish ensues, for those that are still non apathetic enough to care. For those that care they are for the Humish, while the majority of society prefers the status quo of Omnius.

3400 - Humish factions unsatisfied by their larger but still lesser numbers start revolts galaxy wide that are repressed brutally. Omnius again confident in its ability to control people takes these victories as a sign to tighten the reins on humanity. What follows is increasing totalitarian control of the human population. Public sentiment against Omnius grows, but what can be done?

3400 - 3900 - For the next 500 years Omnius brutally suppresses humanity and the species slowly martials its resources and anger and looks for a means of rebellion.

3900 - Butlerian Jihad begins

4000 - Butlerian Jihad ends leading way for the establishment of the universe as it is known in Dune.


End file.
